1228 president's address. 



depends for its existence on the policy of a department, and the 

 fourth is supported by a tradition, which had a value once, but 

 which as now formulated is, like the third, mainly productive of 

 idleness, and hatred of study. Though all efforts at carrying the 

 Royal Road to Knowledge through these four obstacles may and 

 must for the present end in failure, yet there will come a time 

 when the Education Engineers of the day will triumph over all. 

 And it is some little advance in that direction even to look at and 

 estimate the evils which their existence maintains. 



Now, in the first place the atrocious heterography of our written 

 language puts out of the question any rational method of teaching 

 to read. In this respect we are almost in the condition of the 

 Chinese, nay, from one point of view we are behind them. Their 

 characters represent things or notions, one for each, though in the 

 different dialects these characters are represented by different 

 sounds, while we distinguish vale, veil, vail, by the difference of the 

 character, though we make no distinction in sound. With us the 

 same sound is represented by a variety of characters, and different 

 sounds by the same character. For instance, the true sound of A 

 long is given by that letter in Hard, by E in Sergeant, and by EA 

 in Heart ; E long is represented by AT in Air, A-E in Mare, EI in 

 Heir; E short by AI in Said, EA in Head; I long by EE in Seed, 

 EA in Mead, EI in Receive, IE in Believe. AY in Quay, E in 

 Fever, I in Invalid ; I short by U in Busy, IE in Sieve, E in 

 England, EE in Breeches. So also we have the same vowel sounds 

 in Awe, Lord, Fall, Naught, Brought, Broad ; in Trough Know- 

 ledge, Malt, Moll ; in Roll, Coal, Bowl, Roe, Sew ; in Moon, Rue, 

 Blew, Fruit, Through, Shoe ; in Could, Hood, Full, Soot ; and, 

 finally, the same vowel sound is represented by 00, O, U, EA, 

 E, OU, I, in Blood, Word, Curd, Heard, Her, Rough and Bird. 



The diphthongs are no better off, and some of the consonants show 

 confusion worse confounded. 



We have F sounded as V in Of, and written GH in Trough. 

 One and Won are sounded alike ; Gig and General commence with 

 the same. Cat and Kitten with different letters. 



